Call Me A Sucker…

…but I actually believe Ryan Braun.

Coming home from work on Friday, I got to hear a large portion of his press conference after his 50-game suspension acquittal.  I think just hearing the audio of it, without seeing his face, is what did it.

To this listener, it sounded like he voice was quivering and anxious, not out of guilt, but rather genuine anger over the situation. That’s anger.  Not to be confused with roid-rage.  Or road rage, which most likely came later in the afternoon commute on Friday.  He came across as a guy that was pissed off at his piss-test result and the piss-poor way it was handled.  A “Pissy-fit” if you will.

If what the Hebrew Hammer was saying was true, than I think it’s a safe thing to discount the validity of the test.  If his performance metrics really didn’t improve, then that should say something.  If the test levels was three times higher than any other previous test in history, then those may not be numbers you can trust.  If that 3X higher result came after a non-protocol gathering and unaccountable storing procedures, then yeah, there’s some reasonable doubt now.  I understand that urine doesn’t just grow steroids after sitting out, but maybe storing it incorrectly could skew the results in a lab.

I get it, and I agree with Fish Face.  I don’t like that he’ll be playing all year in the NL Central, but I honestly think he should be.  If another test comes down against him in the future, I’ll be there to say I was wrong for buying into it (and to lambast him for victimizing himself and castigating everyone else), but for now, I’m on that bug-eyed freak’s side. So call me a sucker if you like.

There’s one thing you can definitely call me a sucker for: Stickers!

You're a sucker if you thought this wasn't going to turn into a trade post

As Pokey the Penguin would say, “Hooray!”

Way back in September of 2011 – yes, two months off from blogging means I’m that much farther behind in trade posts (and I’m not giving up, dammit!) – reader Matt sent over 33 stickers (17 NBA and 16 MLB) in exchange for a measly 15 MLB sticker return.  You don’t have to go to business school to know that’s a good ROSI (Return on Sticker Investment).

That’s what I love about the stickers.  Book value and everything else goes completely out the window when you’re collecting and trading these.  There are no rare stickers. There are no stickers that are really more valuable than others.  It’s just straight-up trading haves for needs to complete each others’ albums.  So much fun.

Ryan Braun wasn’t in the pile, but as you can see quite a few other good ones were.  At the time, I was pretty dang far from the 2011 MLB Sticker set.  Now, 3-4 trades after this one later, I’m only one away!  If anybody out there has an extra #149 Brian McCann laying around, that’ll complete my album.  I might even get it done before the new year’s album hits.

I’m especially thankful for the 2010-11 NBA stickers.  It’s tougher to find basketball traders, since most bloggers are baseball-centric.  I have a healthy want list left of those, so if you can help me out with that album/set at all, I would be quite happy.

Oddly, none of the 33 stickers completed any teams, so the bundle is the only scan you get this time.  Still, it set the table for future full team pages to be completed and any stickers I don’t have are good stickers by me.

Thank you very much, Matt, for the trade and assisting this sucker.